A 30-year-old drug addict bludgeoned a dealer to death with a piece of wood and kept the body in his airing cupboard for three days, a court heard.

Toby Edwards then wrapped up the body of Carl Biddis in bin bags, took it to a nearby railway station and dumped it.

Neighbours at the Maidstone block of flats where Edwards lived, had seen him dragging the corpse in the early hours.

Police were able to follow a trail of blood from the track at Maidstone Barracks station right to the door of Edwards’s flat at Ruth House, Buckland Hill.

Edwards later claimed that he had struck Biddis twice with the piece of wood in self-defence after he was attacked with a knife.

But Alan Kent, prosecuting, said a pathologist found there had been at least 15 separate blows to the head and body.

"The prosecution say this is not of self-defence," he told Maidstone Crown Court. "We say it was not done in lawful self-defence."

The jury of six men and six women heard how Edwards was part of a drugs group taking heroin and crack cocaine and 39-year-old Biddis was the supplier.

Mr Kent said as Edwards admitted killing the victim in January this year, the only issue to be decided was whether it was in self-defence. Both men had a long history of drug abuse.

Edwards, of Lesley Place, Maidstone, denies murder. He admits preventing the burial of a corpse.

The trial continues.

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